## Facts

- Tho Dinh Tran worked as a hotel maintenance employee for entities operating two Manhattan hotels.
- Tran alleged his employers failed to pay legally required wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
- Tran was covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) setting wage rates above the minimum wage.
- The district court found Tran worked substantial overtime: 91 hours per week in 1989–1990 and 63 hours per week in 1991.
- During litigation, Tran obtained evidence suggesting the employers bribed union officials to tolerate payment below union rates.
- After a bench trial, the district court found FLSA violations and awarded damages, found defendants liable under civil RICO based on the bribery scheme, and declined to revive previously dismissed LMRA § 301 and related state-law claims.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court clearly erred in finding Tran’s weekly hours worked for purposes of FLSA liability and damages.
2. Whether the district court used the correct wage rate in calculating FLSA overtime damages where a CBA provided a higher contractual rate.
3. Whether Tran’s civil RICO claim, added years after the initial complaint, was time-barred and could relate back under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c).
4. Whether the alleged bribery of union officials was a proximate cause of Tran’s wage injury sufficient for civil RICO standing.
5. Whether later-discovered evidence of union bribery required reinstatement of dismissed LMRA § 301 and state-law claims that had not been pursued through contractual grievance/arbitration procedures.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the district court’s finding that Tran proved substantial overtime work under the FLSA and rejected defendants’ clear-error challenge to the hours findings.
- The court affirmed FLSA liability but reversed in part and remanded for recalculation of FLSA damages because the overtime computation required correction as to the applicable rate methodology.
- The court reversed the civil RICO judgment, holding the RICO claim was time-barred and did not relate back to the original wage complaint under Rule 15(c).
- The court also held that, independent of timeliness, Tran failed to show the required direct relation between the alleged bribery and his wage loss for civil RICO proximate causation.
- The court affirmed the refusal to reinstate the dismissed LMRA § 301 and state-law claims.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FLSA, when an employer’s records are inadequate, an employee may prove hours worked by producing evidence permitting a just and reasonable inference; the burden then shifts to the employer to negate the inference or show the precise work performed.
- FLSA provides statutory minimum wage and overtime protections; it is not a device for enforcing all contractual wage terms, and the “regular rate” analysis must be applied consistently with FLSA doctrine even where a CBA exists.
- An amended claim relates back under Rule 15(c) only if the original pleading provided fair notice of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence underlying the new claim; adding a bribery-based RICO theory does not relate back where the earlier complaint alleged only wage underpayment and did not describe bribery or a racketeering scheme.
- Civil RICO requires proximate causation: the plaintiff’s injury must bear a direct relation to the predicate acts; indirect wage injury dependent on intervening third-party processes (such as union action or enforcement) may fail this standard.
- Failure to pursue contractual grievance/arbitration procedures bars LMRA § 301 and related claims absent a recognized exception; later discovery of union corruption does not automatically cure prior nonexhaustion.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit upheld FLSA liability and the district court’s overtime-hours findings, but remanded to correct the overtime damages methodology; it reversed the civil RICO judgment because the claim was untimely, did not relate back to the original complaint, and lacked the required direct causal connection between alleged union bribery and the employee’s wage loss, and it left dismissed LMRA and state claims undisturbed.


Tran v. Alphonse Hotel Corp., 281 F.3d 23 (2d Cir. 2002)